Introduction to Evolutionary Computing

A. E. Eiben and Marc Schoenauer
have recently released online a previously published paper that provides a
concise, easy to understand introduction to the concept of Evolutionary
Computing (PDF format). They describe the roots of the technique in
the 1950s and the
three independently developed implementations: evolutionary programming,
genetic algorithms, and evolution strategies. They also describe the
more recent addition to the fold, genetic programming. All of these
techniques have applications to robotics. The authors remind us,
"natural evolution can be considered as a powerful problem solver
achieving Home Sapiens from chaos in only a couple of billion
years". So far evolutionary algorithms seem equally adept at
solving software-based problems. For more, A. E. Eiben has also authored
a book on the subject, Introduction
to Evolutionary Computing.